


All the Stars Are Closer

by painted_lady12



Series: Our Hearts Beat as One [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Embarrassment, Everyone Is Alive, Family Bonding, First Kiss, First Time, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Gay Keith (Voltron), Keith & Krolia (Voltron) on the Space Whale, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith takes notes on the space whale, M/M, My mess tho, Visions, like how the fuck do they not learn how to save everyone?, when they can see the future intermittently for TWO YEARS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:02:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22404595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/painted_lady12/pseuds/painted_lady12
Summary: Keith and Krolia spend time together on the space whale.  For two years they experience the privacy invasion of their joint memories and the revelations of their futures.Then, a wedding!
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Our Hearts Beat as One [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1047074
Comments: 6
Kudos: 141





	All the Stars Are Closer

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! Another one of these, in the "Our Hearts Beat as One" series. I will end this fic series when hell freezes over.
> 
> *checks notes, realizes that in Dante's inferno the lowest circle of hell is a frozen wasteland*
> 
> Or, uh, it'll end when I say so! Ha!
> 
> Preface: the main focus of this story is still Klance! Fix-it isn't lengthy or detailed.
> 
> As always, I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender.

When the heartbeat had stopped, Lance had dropped the mug he was carrying, watching his hot cocoa shatter on the ground.

No. Keith couldn’t… he couldn’t… no. 

Lance bolted to the communication room, signaling Kolivan and receiving a thankfully quick response.

“Kolivan, where is Keith!?”

The Galra clucked his tongue, looking unconcerned. “Keith went with an associate to a location that doesn’t allow transmissions in or out.”

It was both balm and burn at once. Keith might be fine, but he also might not be. He was Schrodinger’s goddamned cat.

“I wouldn’t worry. They warned us that they might lose connection. I’m assuming your necklace stopped transmitting?”

Blushing, Lance touched the crystal, holding onto it tightly.

“It will be fine. Have faith in your beloved.”

Without any more reassurance, and absolutely no sense or urgency, Kolivan cut off the call.

  
  
  


***

  
  


There were no memories that were safe.

It was mortifying to say the least. Krolia… his mom… no, definitely Krolia… was getting to know him up close and personal. Not only that, but he was seeing sides of his long lost incubator that he never expected. 

Incubator was too callous, Keith thought mildly.

Egg donor?

He was checking his necklace every few seconds, but the heartbeats cut off after entering the temporal zone. Keith had a feeling that they wouldn’t transmit the same with the effects around him. He hoped beyond all hope that Lance didn’t think he was dead.

The two of them flew into a memory that made Keith’s chest ache. They had been on this whale for a few weeks, had learned some things but altogether still weren’t familiar. Keith knew that Krolia was a Blade, so he trusted her to complete their mission, but that didn’t mean he trusted her otherwise. 

This memory was private.

It was just after Shiro disappeared. Keith was hiding out on the planet they were parked on. It was a desert, the sand green and orange but it was still close enough to feel like home. The sink of his boots in the sand had felt familiar, had brought back his memories of wandering the expanse of emptiness with his father.

Now, Keith was watching himself collapse onto the sand and scream.

Memories and familiarity were both sting and balm, both burn and salve. They evoked happiness but inevitably prompted pain.

“Who did you lose?” Krolia asked thoughtfully, recognizing the grief in Keith’s guttural howl.

“It was back when Shiro disappeared. He was the black paladin. We all said he was missing, but we thought he was dead.”

Somehow even though it was only a year or so ago, it felt like a lifetime to Keith. His hair was shorter, his body was weaker, and he had just started going on missions with the Blades.

That was, of course, until a hoverbike crested the horizon and zoomed directly for his younger self. Within a few moments Lance was hopping off, running to Keith desperately.

“Keith, please. We need to talk about this…”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” younger Keith said distantly, his voice hoarse from screaming.

That only seemed to rile Lance up. “There’s everything to talk about! Are you fucking kidding me?! You punched the prince!”

“He was an asshole,” Keith murmured, sitting up with his knees to his chin, staring in the opposite direction than where Lance was.

A strangled cry came from Lance, who threw his hands in the air. His hair was a mess from riding the hoverbike, and current Keith found himself wandering towards him, reaching out as if he could touch the memory. However, as expected, his fingers went right through. Lance’s silky locks locked in time.

“He was giving us a tour of the palace, and he didn’t do anything wrong. What the hell was he being an asshole about?”

Keith curled further into his ball. “Shut up, Lance.”

  
“No! I won’t shut up!” Lance walked angrily towards Keith, hovering over him menacingly. His shadow cast over Keith, plunging him into darkness where there was otherwise no shade. “Voltron has to be the bridge that connects the universe against the Galra. How can we do that when the red paladin is beating up royalty?”

Burying his face into his arms, Keith growled. “Go away.”

“No.”

“I said go away!” Keith’s face was turning stony and angry now, and he jumped off the ground. Krolia had cocked her head to the side in interest, because past Keith was only an inch or so away from Lance. 

Keith remembered the feeling of being so close. He remembered the beads of moisture that clung to his lip where Lance was breathing out. He remembered seeing the irises of Lance’s eyes explode like sunbursts in the middle. 

“I said no,” Lance answered, though his voice was gravelly and quieter. 

“He was flirting with you,” Keith finally said, blushing quickly and violently. 

Cocking an eyebrow, Lance took a step back. He laughed uncomfortably. “No, he wasn’t! He’s a prince. I’m just… no! No way. Why did you really punch him?”

“He was flirting with you,” Keith repeated, eyes falling to the desert floor. Then, he seemed to be trying to count the grains of sand hanging to his jacket. 

“You know what, sure. Even if he was flirting with me, he was being polite. What, you’re jealous that he wasn’t flirting with you?”

“No,” Keith’s eyes snapped up, voice uncompromising. “No, I was mad because I wasn’t the one flirting with you.”

Future Keith winced. He knew that he could be blunt and straightforward, but doing it and seeing it were completely different things. If he didn’t know what happened next, he might have tried to run away from the memory.

In answer, Lance’s face flew through a jumble of emotions. He started on anger, which bloomed into disbelief. Then, as a sun rising over the edge of the earth, Lance seemed to understand.

They were so close, staring at each other so intently. Keith remembered that he trembled, even though it wasn’t visible now.

“Keith,” Lance seemed transfixed on a tress of hair falling in front of Keith’s eyes, “Keith, you big softie, do you like me?”

Past Keith groaned, but didn’t pull away. He just appeared to be in pain and nodded.

In a split second, Lance closed the small gap and pressed his lips to Keith’s, smiling against Keith’s mouth like they were sharing the best secret of all with the contact.

“I like you too,” Lance whispered into Keith’s parted mouth, eyes dragging from lips so that they locked together. “I wish you didn’t punch a prince in order to tell me, but I’ll take it.”

Keith flicked Lance’s forehead, annoyed, and Lance’s arms flailed. 

“Hey, I thought you liked me! Now you’re injuring me? Stop sending mixed signals, Keith!”

“Annoyance and liking aren’t mutually exclusive,” Keith said as response, hands snaking around Lance’s middle and tugging him back in, pressing a biting kiss against Lance’s lips. 

When Keith looked over at Krolia, he found the woman’s eyes welled with tears as she took in her son’s euphoric smile.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She asked, throwing a watery smile at present Keith. He was startled by her sudden expression of emotion. She had cracked a few smiles and had a few moments of sadness, but this was the most intense that Keith had seen her.

“What, boys kissing?”

“No,” she snapped, taking a few steps forward and gazing fondly at the two boys as they broke apart and pressed their foreheads together. “Love.”

“That’s the last thing I expected to hear from you, to be honest.”

“I loved your father,” she admitted warily, “I loved you more than anyone else in the universe. I hoped you would be safe on Earth. I never planned for you to be brought into this war.”

The thought made Keith’s chest constrict. “That means you never wanted us to meet, right?”

“I wanted it, yes, but I had no intention of ensuring it.”

Keith spun on his heel as he felt the memory fade around him, as he watched Lance’s face disappear and they were brought back to the whale.

  
  


***

  
  


Keith and Krolia stood in a bedroom, both of their faces blown wide with surprise and embarrassment. 

Lance and Keith, the previous Lance and Keith, were tangled together on the bed. Sweat was dripping languidly from Lance’s tanned face, which was flushed with heat. Below him, Keith was biting at his own finger, gasping and panting as he was breached. Lance’s cock was partially inserted into Keith, having stopped before fully sheathing. 

“Shh,” Lance whispered, guiding Keith’s finger away. “Does it hurt? Do you want to stop?”

“It hurts, but don’t stop. Just give me a minute,” past Ketih’s voice wavered, and current Keith remembered the pinch of pain of his first time. They were both virgins, both clueless in how to love without pain. Even with preparation Keith remembered the sting of broken skin.

He felt a pang of empathy, completely forgetting that his mother was right next to him. 

“Keith, look at me,” Lance asked, rocking back a bit to get a good look at Keith’s face. Their eyes met, pupils blown wide and hair a tangled mess. Sex looked so much messier from an outside perspective. Keith remembered that moment being beautiful, but his toes and fingers were clenched in pain.

“Keith,” Lance pleaded again, and Keith pressed his forehead to Lance’s shoulder. “I want you to enjoy this. If you aren’t, then…”

“No,” Keith wrapped his arms around Lance’s back, digging his fingernails playfully into the skin there. “Keep going.”

This time, when Lance thrust forward it was slow and careful. He was waiting for Keith to stop him, to yell out in pain, but Keith didn’t say when he hurt. It was simply in his nature.

It eased, though. After a few minutes Keith’s fingers and toes went slack, and then he was gripping Lance tighter, finally gasping and moaning along with his partner. Their bodies were a study in contrasts, but in that moment they were shared in the experience. 

When the past Lance came inside of Keith, Keith didn’t come on his own. So Lance pulled out and assisted with his hand, eventually ringing an orgasm out of his boyfriend.

That was when Lance looked down at the bed and hissed. “Keith, why didn’t you tell me?”

There wasn’t much, but there was blood underneath Keith. He quickly moved to sit up and cover the spot, as if he could keep Lance from paying attention to it just by making it go away.

“It was fine,” Keith insisted, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to Lance’s lips. “It was perfect, but it was the first time. There was bound to be something that went wrong.”

“Okay, but I want to see if we can find you a lotion or something so that you aren’t in pain…”

“I love you.”

It was so sudden, awkwardly jutting out of Lance’s mother hen rant. The two of them had both frozen, and Lance’s eyes blew open wide.

“What?”

“I love you,” Keith repeated, and...   
  


...the memory started to fade. Current Keith reached out desperately, trying to hold onto the beautiful moment, to relive it with them over and over again. He hadn’t seen Lance in so long. It physically pained him to be away. However, the memory dissolved like black smoke above a fire, leaving the clean air on the back of the whale.

“Did he love you back?” Krolia asked, though it didn’t seem to be a question as much as a request for more detail. 

“He did. He does,” Keith repeated, hugging himself. They had been in the temporal zone for weeks. Their communicator didn’t reach beyond their location, so Keith hadn’t been able to tell Lance that he was okay, or that he was safe. What if Lance thought he was dead?

What if everyone thought he was dead? Who would mourn him, really? The Blades had a high enough turnover rate that he was nothing more than a number. Voltron would survive without him. They’d be sad, but they wouldn’t let it consume them. 

He was an orphan, a thief, a hermit. He was nothing more than dirt, and no one mourns when the Earth beneath their feet is crushed into oblivion. 

_ Not an orphan _ Keith reminded himself, looking at Krolia thoughtfully. His throat was closing, thinking of his dad, thinking of the memories he had of Krolia fawning over him as a baby. She loved him, he knew that much. She loved him more than anyone else in the known universe. 

With a deep breath, he leaned back into her chest. Without hesitation or doubt she grasped him, sweeping him up in her arms. 

His lower lip started to tremble.

“I’ve got you, baby,” she cooed, rocking him back and forth like she would a collicky child.

The words stuck like taffy inside his mouth, but if he could, he would want to say “I know.”

  
  


***

  
  


It was the future.

They didn’t see the future much, but when they did it as normally innocuous, like cooking dinner or going on a long walk. This time, however, Keith and Krolia felt the chill in the air that indicated that this was important.

It was a flash of color, a strange plane of light. A scene playing out, muted in front of him. Most of it didn’t make any sense. Allura was walking off into oblivion, with the original paladins of Voltron…

...Keith’s stomach dropped. 

“No,” he whispered, reaching his hand out. The future paladins were torn, but they were  _ letting her go. _ They were  _ letting her die. _

“No, Allura, don’t!” Keith screamed, rushing forward, but the memory faded again, and Keith stumbled, falling forward. He caught himself on the dirt floor. 

“That’s the Altean princess?” Krolia asked, coming up next to him. Keith nodded. 

“She dies trying to take down Haggar… or Honerva… or whoever that was. She sacrifices herself.”

“It’s very noble,” Krolia soothes, but Keith shakes his head, hugging himself. 

“No, it’s fucking stupid. There has to be a way to change it. We saw it, so it doesn’t have to go down that way, right?”

“Sometimes we can’t change the future.”

Frustrated, Keith stalked away from camp, his head whirring with possibilities.

  
  


***

  
  


Krolia and Keith were busy stripping down the animal they hunted for dinner. They were working together eerily well. It was comforting to have someone who thinks the same way as him, and has the same quirks. Even if Keith didn’t grow up as Krolia’s son, he could see himself in her. 

The ice between them was slowly thawing.

The wolf kept reappearing with tiny bugs it caught, proud of his own successful hunt. Keith patted his head affectionately.

Just then, Keith paused, looking up and seeing the flash, only having seconds before…

… they could usually tell if it was the future or the past. The past’s colors were vibrant, as clear as a movie. The future was faded or colorless, the uncertainty of the event causing it to falter. 

In this one, Lance was making pancakes.

The mother and son watched as an older version of Keith came out of a hallway and into the kitchen Lance was working in. The younger paladin wandered around, finding blurry pictures of what looked like three people. It wasn’t set in stone, so Keith had no way of sharpening the look.

Older Keith poked older Lance in the rib. “They’re asleep. You’re taking the next shift, by the way. You can’t keep escaping diaper changes to make me pancakes. It’s unfair.”

Older Lance snorted. “You asked me to make you pancakes, you jerk. Plus, I always wake up when they cry in the middle of the night. It’s called balance, Keith!”

Younger Keith’s stomach clenched, and a pained yelp escaped his lips.

“We have a kid?”

Lance and Keith in front of the stove started to fade. Keith tried to traverse the vision, to run down the hallway that his older self had emerged from, but once he was out of the line of sight of his older self the vision dissipated.

His mother came up to him carefully, her eyes full of concern. “Why are you so surprised?”

“I can’t have a kid, mom. There’s no way. I need to go back! I need to know how that happened. How can I get there? I need more answers!” Keith bellowed, and the sound reverberated off of the clearing they were standing in.

Krolia put her hand out as if she was going to comfort Keith, but then drew it back. “We can’t control what we see here.”

His hands balled into fists. 

“Fuck this place.”

  
  


***

  
  


Two years.

Two years, Keith spent on the space whale. Two years of visions, memories and futures coming up for air and breathing life into his plan. Keith knew Krolia like the back of his hand now. Krolia had seen Keith’s life, and the way it had gone from bad to worse to Voltron. 

More than that, Keith was prepared.

The futures were always of Voltron, never of Keith’s personal life, except for that one with the pancakes. He waited and waited for more, but got no more answers about the mysterious child.

He had oral logs of every future he saw, every possibility of what could happen. Eventually, Keith had gathered all the information he needed.

He could save Allura.

He could save  _ everyone. _

The nights without Lance were the hardest. Sometimes he would be gifted with visions of their past, but usually he was just hoping beyond all hope that time wasn’t passing the same for Lance. Hopefully this two year period would seem quick, even negligable compared to the torture Keith felt. There was a consuming emptiness in his chest, a black hole that wanted to be filled with Lance’s laugh, Lance’s touch, Lance, Lance, Lance…

...some nights, he fell asleep whispering Lance’s favorite songs.

...some nights, he fell asleep crying.

...most nights, he fell asleep and imagined that future of them, making pancakes at the stove, engrossed in their love.

  
  


***

  
  


Haggar was exactly where Keith said she would be.

They managed to escape Lotor without incurring damages, and defeated him before the tears in the fabric of reality were created.

The castle was never sacrificed.

There was no time skip.

They made it back to earth before the invasion of the Galra. 

Everything was different.

Everyone was alive.

The universe was at peace.

  
  


***

  
  


They found it while looking through the castle archives.

Pidge, bless her, had spent hours in the infirmary, going through charts and doctor’s notes dating all the way back to before the destruction of Altea.

Eventually, they pulled up Keith’s charts from the battle he almost died in. The blood work that was done showed a whole host of things, including Keith’s genetic predispositions, and immunities.

They scrolled down to a section that had Keith’s stomach clench.

_ Fertility- inconclusive. Body not properly suited for carrying child. Further testing needed. _

Even though this wasn’t news, the blow landed on Keith hard enough for him to wheeze in pain. The vision had made him hope again, had made him wish that what he’s heard before was wrong. The vision he had must have been improbable as a future. Pidge stayed up with him for a while, watching tv and eating ice cream.

He couldn’t tell Lance. His boyfriend didn’t have the same moment of hope in the temporal zone, and Keith didn’t have the heart to get Lance’s hopes up just to squash them again.

It was the right call, right?

  
  


***

  
  


Keith was pacing back and forth, talking into a headset. His tuxedo was pressed and black, lined with red and cut with sharp angles. He looked at his watch again, and cursed under his breath.

“Keith, babe, you need to breathe,” Lance tried, but Keith just glared back at his boyfriend.

“He’s late!”

Sighing, Lance muttered, “I know, everyone is looking for him, but this stress can’t be good for you. You’ll sweat through your tux.”

Someone popped their head in. Keith made terrified eye contact with Pidge, who shot him a grin. “Matt found him. One of his students was injured and he was checking up on them before coming here.”

“Idiot,” Keith cursed as Lance said, “Typical.” They glanced at each other with a relieved smile, hands tangling together. 

Pidge looked dashing herself, in a tuxedo lined with green. She wore her hair in a tight bun, the side of her head shaved with a floral pattern detailed in. As she moved to step out of the room, a very panicked Shiro was pushed aggressively in by a furious Matt.

“Shiro, I swear to the White Lion, you’re too selfless for your own good,” Matt grumbled, shooing Pidge out of the room and throwing Shiro’s outfit at him one piece at a time.

“Go and get everything else set. I’ve got him,” Matt dismissed Lance and Keith, who immediately went back on their headsets as they darted out of the room.

Twenty minutes later, on the grounds of the new Galactic Alliance Headquarters, hundreds of people stood at attention as the music swelled to life. People walked down the aisle, arm in arm. Five people stood off to the left, waiting with their bayards pressed to their chests. Keith with red lining, Lance with blue, Pidge with green, Hunk with yellow, and finally, looking stunning in her own tuxedo, Allura stood at attention with hers.

The first person to walk down the aisle was Shiro, arm and arm with his mother. For someone who arrived so recently, he still looked so put together. His garrison uniform for formal occasions emphasized his commanding presence, and when he reached the front the paladins waiting all shot him encouragement, through finger guns, thumbs up, and winks.

The next person to come down the aisle was being led by his mother, decorated in his own officer’s uniform. Adam’s face was screwed up with emotion, his eyes locked on Shiro’s.

Shiro had started to shake, tears silently streaming down his face. Keith stepped forward and placed a reassuring hand on Shiro’s shoulder, prompting him to stand up straighter and take a deep breath.

When Adam got to the front of the congregation, everyone was seated.

Commander Iverson cleared his throat, getting everyone’s attention.

“Today, we are all gathered to bear witness to one of the most important commitments a person can make, and that is the bonds of holy matrimony. Takashi Shirogane and Adam Wheaton have come forward to confess their love in front of all those they hold dear. I have been lucky enough to watch the two of them grow. Starting as rookies assigned as copilots, they were immediately at each other’s throats. Both of them were passionate and talented individuals, and eventually they learned how to stop trying to lead the other one and instead decided to grow together. When they announced their relationship, I won fifty bucks in our office betting pool,” Iverson admitted, holding up a fifty dollar bill and tucking it into Shiro’s pocket. “You two showed me what it was like to love and thrive. Adam, and Shiro, everyone here is better off having known you.”

The rest of the ceremony was a blur of smiles and tears and flower petals. Lance was sobbing into Hunk’s jacket. Keith had to catch Adam’s cap when Shiro flung it off to kiss his husband.

There was a round of applause as they broke apart, and everything seemed to click into place.

  
  


***

  
  


Lance stood at the bar with Veronica, holding a strawberry daiquiri and staring longingly at his boyfriend.

How was he so handsome? The way his dark hair brushed back into his half ponytail, exposing the lines and veins in his neck. Keith’s smile widened toothily as he laughed with Adam, and Lance’s heart just about stopped.

“You’re staring,” Veronica teased, and Lance shook his head, snapping his attention to his sister. 

“I am not!”

“You are. You’re head over heels, brother.”

Looking back at Keith, Lance swallowed and nodded. “I am.”

“Do you think this will be you guys some day?” Veronica gestured around her, to the decorations and the laughing crowds.

“Yeah,” Lance whispered, “Someday when we’re older and wiser and not saviors of the universe.”

Just then Keith glanced over at Lance, who was letting his eyes slide along Keith’s body. Keith stiffened, raising a taunting eyebrow and cocking his pointer finger in a “come hither” motion.

“Sorry, the love of my life has summoned me,” Lance said, dropping his daiquiri on the counter so quickly that it sloshed over the rim.

They met halfway across the dance floor, and just like the way they fall into line in a fight, they fell into line here. Their hands found the right holds, their steps synced with the music. Lance was the more talented dancer, so he lead, but Keith wasn’t one to passively accept anything. Their dancing became a power struggle, something so distinctly  _ them _ that Lance found himself giggling.

“What?” Keith asked, eyes soft as lilac petals.

“I love us.”

Cocking an eyebrow, Keith asked, “what do you mean?”

“I mean I love us. I love you, and I love the way we are with each other. I love the way that we talk, and fight, and kiss, and make love. I love the people we surround ourselves with, and the lives we lead. I love us.”

Both of them were frozen for a second, eyes flicking between each other’s, searching for doubt or anxiety, but only finding affection. 

After a moment, Keith whispered, “I love us, too.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Is this the last fic in this series, you might ask? No! I have another one ready to go! Buckle up, butter cups.
> 
> As always, comments give me life. Any feedback warms my cold, dead writer's heart<3
> 
> If you like this, check out my other fics! Leftover Lovesongs just finished up! It's my fluffiest fic ever. I have no shame. It was a fucking delight to write.


End file.
